Concupiscence
by ophelia who is insane
Summary: This is a fic unlike anything that you've seen before; it doesn't have a genre and it has its own sparkling new ship - ArtemisOlder woman. A novella about seduction, corruption, sodomy, and other good stuff.


**Title **: Concupiscence.

**Author:** Ophelia. (Mrs. Yeti-Insane)

**Rating:** PG13, but will go up.

**Status: **This is a WIP and will probably end up being 4 or 5 parts long.

**Disclaimer: **Man, y'know that we can't, like, own anything in the great scheme of things….. it's like the universe is one giant public library, y'know… and we're just, like, people borrowing books… hey peace out man….

**AN:** WARNING! This fic contains an Original Female Character, and two Original Male Characters who will feature later, plus some Original Minor Characters. Yes I know… sue me… no pun intended. This is something that no AF author should ever do, but I seem to be breaking every rule with this fic. If you have no moral issues regarding sodomy, slash, explicit sex, Artemis seducing 40-something year old married women, corruption, piano! sex, gambling, underage drinking, oil painting and what could be described as consensual rape, then read on. However if you find any of that in some way objectionable, I suggest you stop now. Not all of those things happen in this part, but I'm sure they will at some stage.   

**Acknowledgements: **For this fic I am so greatly indebted to the other Partners In Crime, comprising of **Skye Firebane, ****Kitty Rainbow, **Jude**, ****Blue Yeti / Mrs. Yeti-Insane (who also beta'd for me, the darling), and also ****Bluedia, ****Biz, **Dawn**, and anyone else from my LJ friends list who I have overlooked by mistake. I owe so much to you, because this one wouldn't have happened without your constant enthusiasm, prodding, support and love. Because without you I wouldn't have survived to finish it******

**Dedication**: For my darling net-wife, the other Mrs Yeti-Insane who is half of my soul and I couldn't live without her. Liz – thank you, thank you, thank you. 

*

Artemis stood in the chilly evening air waiting for Butler to arrive. He rubbed his hands together and watched his breath condense in front of him with only mild interest. 

"Anything planned for the holidays?" said a voice.

Artemis shrugged.

"Just the usual, Milton," he said, addressing the other boy, "family, friends, Christmas trees, a large bottle of whisky if I'm lucky." he yawned, quite bored by the whole idea. "No doubt I will find something to amuse myself with, I'm sure you understand."

Milton laughed. He was the son of a politician who had what could be described as a grudge against Artemis, and had at least a vague idea of what Artemis got up to in his spare time. 

The Bentley pulled up.

"Have fun"

Artemis gave him a crafty smile as Butler put his suitcase in the back.

"Don't worry Milton, I will." he replied and climbed inside. 

"Who was that?" Butler asked over his shoulder once they were on the motorway.

"His father is James Broadbent, I'm sure you remember him. Last year he tried to frame me for tax evasion. I think I nearly bankrupted him… Milton is in my Greek class."

"Oh. Well… was the term, ahh, productive?"

Artemis snorted. An unusual display of levity.

"It's difficult to be productive when half of the textbooks I am given are out of date and the other half I wrote when I was eleven. The world moves on. Unfortunately, the school is staying put. I stopped taking French _parce__ que c'était trop facile and also Latin, so I did stage two Genetic Science in my spare time."_

He lapsed into silence as he looked for a book that was hiding in the folds of his discarded coat.     

"So, Butler, what have mother and father contrived for me over the next two weeks?"

Butler cleared his throat.

"You're not required to attend anything apart from the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day functions."   

"What on earth have I done to be spared from such torture?"

"I have no idea. I think they're being thoughtful. They know how you hate it."

Artemis tutted.

"I'm not as socially inept as you might be inclined to think, Butler, they're doing it for a reason. We shall just have to make it our job to find out."

Butler looked up at his reflection in the rear view mirror to find Artemis looking at him very seriously. His mouth went dry.

"If it pleases you, sir." he commented, and tried to hide the tightening of his pants.

And Artemis smiled to himself, for some unknown reason he got a strangely sadistic kick every time Butler called him 'sir'. 

"Well," he continued, having found his copy of _'L'Enfant Prodigue'_ "is there anything else that I should know before we arrive home? Is Juliet coming to visit?"

"Yes, she's arriving a few days after Christmas. She's needed for the WWF Christmas grudge match, but she thought it would be best to spend some time with family, so to speak."

There was a pause.

"But there is one other thing, Mrs. Baldwin is staying."

Artemis was distracted by the revelation. He raised his eyebrows.

"Oh really? What brings her to the Manor?"

"She was finding London a bit claustrophobic. Your parents want you to be sociable."

"Is her husband with her?"

"She said that he's in New York on business, but I've been keeping tabs on his credit card expenses since the fall of Fission Chips and someone's been using them in Amsterdam. Most likely seeing the mistress, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, well, we must make allowances for that man. I really must do something about him…" he paused, looking out the window for a moment. "In that case, I shall be perfectly charming."

*

The next day dawned bright and cold as winter stalked about the land. Artemis made his way to the library with his sketchbook and a piece of charcoal. Inside he found Mrs. Baldwin herself curled up in the window seat with a copy of something by Nabokov, and appeared to not have noticed his entrance.

"Good morning, Olivia."

She jumped.

"Oh! Hello, Artemis! When did you arrive back?" she asked, standing and allowing herself to be kissed.

"Yesterday evening, while you were out. Do you mind if I…?" he asked, indicating the seat.

"Oh of course, go ahead. Besides, I can never read those books without getting a headache. I haven't seen you in so long. Your latest symphony was received very well in London."

"Was it? I think at the time I was being distracted by share prices in Singapore."

"So, tell me, what else have you been up to?"

"At risk of sounding clichéd, if I told you that I would have to kill you."

"I see. Death and taxes."

"What a curious expression that is."

She made a funny noise in the back of her throat and played with the string of pearls around her neck.

"The last time I saw you, you were a child." She said nostalgically.

"Every day we live is one day closer to death." he told her.

"That's rather morbid, Artemis."

"If a man was thrown into an aquarium full of starved Great White Sharks, would you think it morbid for him to look for an escape?"

"…Um…"

"Where is the point in getting one's hopes up? Can you not see the beauty of that logic?"

Olivia's education had not prepared her for these kinds of questions coming from a teenage boy. Coherent answers were beyond her, so she said:

"You've changed so much. I hardly know you anymore."

"Have I really? Maybe it's you that has changed."

He was sitting quite a distance from her, and directing his attention to his drawing. Olivia looked at him for a while, unsure of what to say, and did not attempt to go back to the Nabokov. 

"I get the strangest feeling," she said, "that I have never really known you. I mean; I've known you since you were born, but I've never really **known you. I don't know if that makes sense."**

Artemis looked up at her. She was still clinging to the necklace, and she seemed so unsure of herself.

"We don't ever really know anyone. All we ever see is the person they pretend to be."

"So… who are you then?"

"Me? I'm really a cynical forty year old trapped in a sixteen year old's body. _Et toi?"_

"Oh, I don't really know… I suppose that I'm just a child."

She laughed sarcastically, and was then met with silence.

"**You're** not a child anymore, are you, Artemis?"

"I never was a child."

"I didn't mean it like that… I meant… oh, I don't know what I meant. You're different. You're looking at the world differently. It's strange…" she paused, then changed the topic, "Show me what you've done so far."

Olivia wandered over to him to have a look at his sketch. It was of a woman with unruly hair and enormous eyes leaning against the frame of the window, who played with a string of pearls around her neck.

"You didn't ask my permission," she said.

"Would you have refused?"

"No."

"So there was no point in my asking."

She stopped and thought about it.

"I was never any good at drawing," she said to him, "I never had the patience. You know what English Preparatory schools are like. Your mother and I spent most of our classes reading _Vanity Fair_."

"You read _Vanity Fair_? I can only hope that you are joking."

"Artemis, we were never expected to be academics. We were taught to read and write, manage the estate accounts, dance, play the piano, make conversation, we took a course in Cordon Bleu and then we were sent to a finishing school near Nice to find ourselves a husband."

"Only, it didn't really work out in that way."

"I am married Artemis, not as though that really means anything."

"I meant with my Mother and Father."

The older woman looked at him intently, as if measuring his worth.

"Don't try to grow up to quickly, Artemis."

He stood and took the sketchbook from her hands, and she was suddenly aware of how tall he was.

"But it's already too late. You said that yourself."  

She looked at him for a moment and her smile faded. She opened her mouth to say something else, but thought better of it. 

"Shall we go down for breakfast?" she asked tentatively.

*

Olivia had first met her husband when her father stopped her on the staircase of her family's country house and introduced her to his young friend. At first they had not got on at all, because she made a comment about South Africa and he had the bad manners to say that she had never set foot in the country so he would be interested to know on what she based her opinion; and she had said later that he was the rudest man she had ever met. He went back to South Africa and she was presented and it was all rather boring.

Then she got it into her head that she actually wanted to go there just to see the place. At first her father had refused to let her go, and she had gone to the piano and had begun to play the most clichéd piece of classical music in history, _Für__ Elise. It is a rather dark piece of music that steadily gains in tragic intensity when played sixty-four consecutive times. Just prior to Olivia commencing the sixty-fifth rendition of Beethoven's _Für___ Elise her father had walked into the room and gently asked her to play something else. She had glared at him, gone outside to her horse and set it at a six-foot high fence. When she had turned down three of four offers of marriage and broken her collarbone and one arm he supposed that he had better let her go before she killed herself. She had not touched a piano since._

She sailed to Cape Town and it was not at all what she had expected. It defied description. So did the people. Also, it was rather hot. That is, she had expected it to be hot, but she had expected it to be cooler. She looked up the rudest man she had ever met and this time they got on better, but not by much. She said that now she had set foot in the country she could say what ever she liked, and he replied to this saying that he was glad she had overcome the diffidence that had afflicted her on a previous occasion. She said something quite cutting and he said something quite rude. 

They got married because they knew it would annoy their parents.

*

Breakfast and the rest of the day progressed in a relatively normal manner. The next evening, after a particularly successful party, during which Artemis had retreated to the library, someone in the adjacent music room got up and started playing Beethoven's _Für_ Elise_ on the piano very badly. He tried to listen to it, but it was positively awful. Artemis got up and strode into the room only to find Mrs. Baldwin very drunkenly trying to remember the piece. _

"Oh… Artemis…" she slurred, seeing him "You must know this tune? How many times do you repeat the first phrase?"

"You should not be trying to play it if you can't remember." he replied, trying to close the lid on the Steinway but she stopped him.

"No! No!" she said, slapping his hand "Bad boy! When I was young I could play this… teach me…"

Artemis sighed and sat down next to her on the stool. He played the sixty-fifth rendition of _Fur Elise_ rather bitterly; because that is the only way you can play it, especially if you want to play it well. Olivia tried to clap when he had finished, but her hands kept missing each other.

"That was very nice Artemis. You should play pross… proff…professionally."

"I did, when I was four. The only problem was that I had to pretend that I was Turkish."

"I didn't know you spoke Turkish."

"I don't. I had to pretend to be an autistic, Turkish, piano-playing prodigy. It was extremely depressing. Imagine wearing copious amounts of fake tanner and acting in _Tommy_ and _The King and I simultaneously on the same stage. I've not done anything since, apart from conducting and composing."_

"What note is this?"

"That would appear to be a B flat."

"And B flat is…?"

"The flat in D minor, if that makes any sense."

"Oh." she paused, looking for her glass, "How utterly ghastly." And she downed the gin and tonic in one gulp.

"Hmmmm." said Artemis, not really convinced, "I think that the piano is such a boring instrument. All the keys are all nicely laid out for you, all divided up into a keyboard, and you can go away and come back, and then there are all the notes just waiting where you left them. It doesn't make any distinction between E sharp and F. Or F flat and E. It's so unimaginative."

But Olivia wasn't paying him much attention, having picked up his sketchbook and was looking through its pages. Her eyes shifted slowly from the drawings to the artist, and she lent in towards him. 

"I want you to paint me in oils." she whispered in his ear.

"You're drunk." he told her, "You don't know what you want."

Olivia moved herself even closer, and Artemis could smell the alcohol on her breath and the perfume that she wore. Something heady.

"Please?" she asked and bit her lip "I'll do anything you want. I'm completely at your disposal."

Artemis would have pointed out that if she was entirely at his disposal he would be currently screwing her on top of the piano. But she was drunk, and he did have a little respect for music.

"Do you know how attractive you are when you're intoxicated?"

She suppressed a giggle.

"What think you, my Artemis?" she continued. "Will you? Will you be kind to me? Will you…" and she lent in even further, but he stopped her from what ever it was that she was about to do by putting a hand over her mouth. And his eyes sparkled with malicious amusement, but Olivia didn't notice this.

"I think that I should leave." He said, and removed the hand.

"But why?"

"Because if I don't leave now, things will change."

"Change how?"

He didn't reply, just ran a hand through her hair, down her neck and over the pearls, and along her shoulder to where the strap of her dress was falling off. Her skin crackled with lightning underneath his fingers. Then he stood up and crossed the room.

"Good night, Olivia."

The door clicked shut.

"Bastard." she muttered, and went to get another drink. 

*

Olivia turned over in her sleep, in that strange place where you are not awake, but not sleeping. She was aware that light was coming thought the open curtains. How odd. Had she forgotten to close them last night? Her eyes cracked open.

Artemis was sitting in a chair opposite the bed, just watching her. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she looked at him blearily.

"I thought the door was locked." she said.

"It was." he shrugged.

This was extremely unnerving for her, for obvious reasons.

"Artemis," she said shakily, "I would appreciate it if you didn't do that in the future; it's not very ethical to---" 

But he had come over to the bed, sat down and given her a look of such intensity that she fell silent.

"I have decided to accept your offer." he said to her.

"What offer was that?"

"The one you made last night."

"Oh," she said guiltily, "that one."

The blackness around her eyes was smudged with slumber.

"There is one small problem though." he said.

"Oh?"

"Well, not so much of a problem as an inconvenience."

"Do tell."

"I don't have a studio."

"Oh."

She looked at him and shrugged. Artemis noticed the lines around her eyes. But then, she was the same age as his mother. He was then shocked to realise that if the circumstances had been different, she could have been his mother.  

"Could you not use this room?" she asked.

He glanced rather scathingly at the lighting.

"I think not. There is, however, another room which will suffice. It may be a bit cold, but I'm sure we shall survive."

"Err… but where is it?"

"Down. It was previously used to house objects of value. Before that it was a cellar. Now it is simply empty."

"A cellar? You're going to paint a portrait in a cellar?" she bit her lip.

Artemis resisted the urge to pounce on her then and there.

"I suggest that you get dressed," he said, standing up. "It is nearly midday."

"But wait!" she exclaimed as he turned towards the door. "What do you want me to wear?"

He turned back to face her. The angles of her body presented themselves to him through her thin apparel as he looked her over, tongue between his teeth. 

"You are not **required** to wear anything. Just maybe… some pearls"

He turned again and left, smiling slightly.

*

Dinner that day was a very interesting affair indeed. And that was just the food. The main course consisted of salmon, pasta, three types of salad and two types of tabouleh - expensive to say the least, not mentioning the wine. Halfway through this blatant excuse for getting drunk the subject of the conversation turned from oil mining in the North Sea to the current international economy, which was looking sick.

"I don't know what Lars is going to do," Olivia was saying, "the profits for Orbis are down by 80%, they've had to get rid of 2,000 staff and still there is not enough work for the rest of them. Lars is trying to sort the whole fiasco out as we speak. I hope."

"You know what the American media is like," said Angeline, "the whole affair will be talked up to catch the public's interest."

"You have to admit though," continued the older of the two Artemises, "Lars has never really endeavored to keep his nose clean. No wonder this whole investigation is taking place; he was completely responsible for all the book-cooking in Fission Chips. The accountants are always the ones to go under first."  
  
  


Olivia toyed with her napkin; clearly disconcerted.

"So you think that he, and the rest of Orbis deserve this? Because of what they've done?" she asked.

"No, he is simply reaping what he has sowed. Surely you can see that after – what? - nearly 15 years of marriage. His past is simply coming back to bite him, and if I were you I would leave as quickly as possible." he replied.

"Yes Olivia, I think you must," added his wife. "There's no future for you with him. Get out of the marriage before your entire estate is liquidated."

"I don't think I could just… leave."

She bit a nail. Angeline sighed.

"What is stopping you?"

"Emotional attachment." she put on her best innocent face.

"Be serious. You don't love him. You're a grown woman, you need to move on."

"My estate is all the money we have left. If I leave now I'll be forced to split."

"Isn't that better than leaving with nothing after the liquidators have taken everything to pay off Orbis' debts? If you go now you'll only loose half of what you had."

Olivia shrugged at this in despair.

"Why do these things always end this way? I have already paid a price for everything that I own."

The younger Artemis spoke up.

"And what is it exactly that you own?"

"What do you mean?"

"What are the things that mean more to you than anything in the world? Things that you would die for. I can tell you even now that they would not be possessions."

She didn't know what to say to this, having never really thought about it before.

"Is life always so simple for Artemis?"

"Perhaps I ask less of it."

But Olivia shook her head. 

"I don't believe that at all."

They were interrupted by the advent of dessert. Artemis did not remove his eyes from her all throughout this and she felt herself grow uncomfortable underneath his gaze. Nobody else noticed the sexual excitement which hung in the air between them. 

"Would you like me to explain it to you in greater depth?" he asked her, and he pushed the tip of his tongue up against the inside of his teeth in what could only be described as an extremely suggestive manner. 

Olivia screamed inside. But really, she threw down her cutlery and napkin, then dashed out of the room. 

"I had better go and see what's wrong." said Angeline, and followed her out.

Artemis Senior looked thoroughly mystified. The other Artemis put on his best innocent face and regarded his cheesecake with interest.

"Was it possibly something that I said?' he asked.

Out in the corridor Olivia lent against the wall, unwilling to return to the dining room where the conversation centered around what was wrong with her life. She felt that she would die, whither and die, if she heard another word; if she had to endure another moment of Angeline's concern or Artemis' gruff observations. Or the cold, cutting comments that came from the other Artemis, the undercurrent of preditorial sexual desire that he exuded, and was unnoticed by the others.

She thought of him. In the gloom of the hall way she felt something inside of her rise up like a wave about to break. His seriousness. His eyes. His hair. His long, pianist's fingers. His subtlety. Cruelty. She knew what he was doing to her.

"Olivia?" said the voice of Angeline. "Are you feeling unwell?"

"No." she shook her head and rubbed her brow. "I'm fine."

"I'll speak to Artemis."

"No. Don't bother. It wasn't him…" she trailed off.

If she left now, he had won. He would find her by herself, alone in a room and she wouldn't be able to stop herself. It was his cruelty.

"It's just… I feel so _trapped_."

If she left now, there was no going back. Shut the door. Kill the light. Blackout tonight. He would come for her when she was alone in her room. There would be no going back. After the first time, it would be forever. 

Olivia ached for him. Longed for him with the whole of her biology.

She and Angeline went back to the meal.

*

Christmas day came and went. Olivia refused to allow Artemis into the same room as her without someone else present. 

And Artemis would then smile to himself. Her eyes were closing. He hunted her like a cat hunts a sparrow with a broken wing. With cold, clinical precision, not met with restraint. 

On Boxing Day he showed her the prison-like room with the concrete walls and the steel framed bed. There was a small patch of dirt near the base of one of the legs. There was a look of apprehension on her face.

"Don't tell me that you have had second thoughts," he said.

"It's not that…"

"It was your idea."

"I was drunk."

"And persuasive."

She lent against the wall, and he stood opposite to her.

"You want to do it tomorrow?"

"That is correct." he came towards her. "It's not everyday that a woman is painted by the second Artemis Fowl."

"What about…"

"We won't be disturbed. Everyone will be out being sociable tomorrow."

The prospect of being alone in a room with him for that length of time positively terrified her.

"This is really very kind of you Artemis."

"I assure you, the pleasure is mine."

Olivia felt the wave press against the inside of her stomach as he moved closer, blue eyes sparkling. She felt so powerless. So **helpless. Out of control.**

_Just walk away. Close the door. _She told herself. But she couldn't. And then he stopped, went back to leaning against the wall, getting some sort of sadistic pleasure out of teasing her.

"Good night, Artemis."

The door opened, then shut, as she slipped out into the night of the stairway. His eyes followed her out, and she looked back once, knowing he was still there.

"Bitch." he muttered.

The cold made her shudder as she walked back to her room. But it wasn't really the cold.

Later, in the warmth of her bathroom, she removed her clothes and looked at herself in the long mirror of the bathroom door and the spectre of her future appeared to mock her. Age. Death. Withered breasts hung from her body like weighted socks. As dry as a bone between her legs, the hair feather white. As brittle as a pressed fern. Skin that flaked and shed like snow. 

Olivia shivered.

There was a cold feeling inside her on that cold evening. That life had been lived. That her cup was full of dust. That the air, the sky, the snow, the lightness and the dark were all slowly turning to sand. That sand would fill her nostrils, her lungs, her mouth. It would pull her down into an endless oblivion like water is pulled down an open plughole.

She put a red toothbrush underneath a breast to see if it would stay. It did, and this was a bad thing. She was not old. But she was not young either. Under her hands her nipples wrinkled and hardened, pulling at the soft skin of her breasts. The thin line of down that led from her belly button, over the gentle curve at the base of her belly, to her dark triangle. Like an arrow directing a lost traveler. An inexperienced lover. 

She undid her hair to see how long it had grown. It fell in prematurely grey waves past her shoulders. The dull colour of a gloomy Sunday. She looked a little critically at her round, heavy behind. Not big in itself, but big only because the rest of her was so slender. It belonged to another, more voluptuous body. She was ashamed to admit that they would happily support a toothbrush apiece. Perhaps two. It was a bad thing. She laughed out loud to herself at the idea of walking naked through Dublin with an array of different coloured toothbrushes sticking out from either side of her bottom. She silenced herself quickly. She saw a wisp of madness escape from inside of herself and dance around the bathroom. Olivia worried about madness. 

She gathered up her hair and wrapped it around her face, and peered down the road to age and death. Like a medieval executioner peering through the slits of his hood toward the executionee.

It wasn't what lay at the end of the road which frightened Olivia as much as the nature of the road itself. There were no milestones to mark her progress. There were no trees. No shadows. No twists or surprise turns obscured even momentarily, her view of the end. This filled Olivia with an awful dread, because she was not the kind of woman who wanted her future told. She feared it too much. If she were granted one small wish, it would be not to know. Not to know what each day held in store for her, where she might be next month, next year, ten years on. And Olivia knew. Or **thought** she knew, which was really just as bad. 

Hooded in her hair, she lent against her reflection in the mirror and tried to weep.


End file.
